Woman charged with defrauding Graham-based company

A Carteret County woman is being held under $5 million bond after being accused of a multi-million fraud against her Graham-based employer.

Susan White Garcia, 42, was arrested Friday after being indicted by a grand jury in Carteret County Superior Court for eight Class-C felony counts of obtaining property by false pretense, according to information from District Attorney Scott E. Thomas.

She is accused of stealing $5.3 million from Big Rock Sports LLC over a five-year period. Big Rock moved its headquarters to Graham last year. It is an outdoor sporting goods distributor, wholesaler and service provider. It has more than 600 employees throughout North America, including approximately 80 at its office in Newport, where Garcia was employed.

Garcia was an accounts payable manager for Big Rock Sports, LLC, and was responsible for obtaining, distributing and tracking the use of a number of company credit cards. Garcia is accused of using several cards to make personal purchases and falsifying the corporate accounting records to cover it up.

Purchases allegedly included subscriptions to online gambling sites, items from Amazon.com and other retailers and personal travel payments.

According to Big Rock Sports, staff discovered that Garcia had been violating company policy regarding use of company funds and notified state and local law enforcement.

The company said it will continue to work with law enforcement and other authorities involved in the process but will make no further statements.

Due to the high volume of sales by Big Rock Sports LLC and Garcia’s efforts to conceal the wrongdoing, the unlawful use of the company cards went on for several years, authorities said.

The alleged fraud occurred over a period from 2007 to 2012.

The State Bureau of Investigation has conducted the investigation with assistance from the Carteret County Sheriff’s Office.

“We’ve been working on this investigation since the fall of 2012. The SBI financial crimes unit has led the investigation with the assistance of Sheriff Asa Buck and his staff. Ms. Garcia has been indicted based upon the findings of the investigation. We will continue to work closely with the SBI, Sheriff’s Office, and Big Rock Sports as the prosecution of the case moves forward,” Thomas said via the release.

She faces up to 64 years in prison if convicted on the charges.

Felonies in North Carolina are categorized in order of severity of offense and punishment, from Class A to Class I. The Class-C level felony carries, in this case, an eight-year maximum prison sentence per count, and is more severe than the more frequent Class-H level charge. A Class-H level charge of this kind carries a maximum of eight months in prison.